


I will sing you a song no one sang to me

by Arokel



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale does not, Coming Out, Crowley has his Shit Together, Getting Together, Good Omens through the ages, M/M, Not sure how that happened, but it's just an offhand joke, can you tell I don't know when Leviticus was written, gets a bit preachy sorry, mention of bestiality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-02 12:46:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19199119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arokel/pseuds/Arokel
Summary: "Look, angel, if you feel it, it has to be at least a little bit holy."Aziraphale comes out. Three thousand years later, he comes clean.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I was listening to "Everything Possible" by The Flirtations for the first time in like, a decade and then this happened. So... happy Pride, I guess?

Long before the Greeks invented aesthetic form and the Romans invented Hedonism, when rabbis were only just hashing out what the Almighty had _meant_ with the whole Scriptures thing, Aziraphale found him in the desert.

Aziraphale had followed Moses out of Egypt, leaving Crowley behind on the banks of the Red Sea, and then he had just… stayed. Life was easier, out in the desert, in that city of cloth and tents, beneath the shadow of the mountains. It reminded him of a simpler time, when humans lived long enough to be worth befriending and knew Good and Evil when they saw it. Now, they had Laws to tell them what it was, and Aziraphale wished they didn’t.

He found Crowley high atop the dunes, looking down over the great temples and palatial halls of Pi-Ramesses.

He did not _intend_ to seek out Crowley. The thought had crossed his mind in his lonely wanderings, and then, as if summoned, Crowley was there. The world itself seemed to have made way for their meeting, empty and expectant. The dunes rolled out beyond them, devoid of shape or life, for miles. They were as alone as they had been on the plane east of Eden, in a similar sunset.

Crowley looked… good, dark skin bronzed by the sun, wrapped kilt as pristine white as his gleaming, pointed teeth. His eyes, lined with kohl in the Egyptian style, reflected the myriad of jewelry he wore about his hands and neck, and the brilliant amber-gold of the evening sand. The racing wind, that tangled Aziraphale’s robes around his legs and threw sand into his face, seemed not to touch Crowley, standing motionless above the city like a watchful angel. Aziraphale, feeling suddenly shabby in worn, undyed linen, noted all this with some unease.

It was not strange, he reasoned, to take notice of one’s Adversary; appearances changed, and there was always the chance he might need to pick Crowley out of a crowd – never mind that he’d never had a problem pinpointing Crowley’s presence before. Best to be familiar with his most… striking characteristics. There was nothing wrong with it.

“Angel!” Crowley cried, upon Aziraphale’s approach. His smile was blinding, bright like the setting sun. “What’s it been, forty years? Still slumming it in the desert?”

Aziraphale grit his teeth against the mock. Crowley was only being Crowley; he couldn’t help but be abrasive. “I could ask the same of you. Opulence doesn’t suit you,” he lied.

Crowley scoffed. “I don’t need to smell lies to know you are, angel. I’ve never looked better.”

Aziraphale hoped the sun’s glare hid his flush. Crowley’s body fairly _gleamed_ with health and extravagance; even Aziraphale had to admit he was lovely. But then, Crowley had always been lovely.

“I would have thought vanity a bit below you, dear,” he said.

Crowley fluttered long, dark eyelashes at him. Aziraphale swallowed. “I’ve got a lot of things beneath me these days,” Crowley said, with a wink. “You’d love it, angel. They’ve got this wondrous thing they do with crocodile dung – no need to worry like your poor fallen friends.”

Aziraphale was so consumed with not blushing harder at the image of those people _beneath_ Crowley that he almost forgot to be offended on behalf of those unfortunate angels whose only fault had been loving humans before they knew the Rules.

Aziraphale sympathized.

“That’s… really not my scene,” he hedged, conscious of Crowley’s hitherto undisclosed ability to _smell lies._

He could have sworn Crowley looked momentarily disappointed, but that was a trick of the sun, shadowing the planes of his face and pasting strange, wishful afterimages over Aziraphale’s vision.

“Pity,” Crowley said, any hint of melancholy vanished, or more probably never present at all. “What brings you to my city, then, besides the exquisite pleasure of my company?”

He winked.

“Just that,” Aziraphale admitted. He had no business in the city; the aim of his wandering had been to take him far enough from any human presence to _think_ clearly. The only draw Crowley’s territory held for Aziraphale was Crowley himself, so like the gleaming city in his flash and elegance. Aziraphale thought perhaps he could learn to like it, if Crowley taught him.

There was nothing to be done about the blush, Aziraphale realized, except hope that Crowley might take it for sunburn.

Crowley’s wink stuttered to a blink halfway through. “Well, I can’t say I expected – angel, are you _blushing?_ ”

“Sunburn,” Aziraphale mumbled. “I… came to ask your advice.”

It hurt to ask, but the worry and fear of _not_ asking hurt more, an almost physical ache that was too close to desire to be at all comfortable. He did not _want_ to need Crowley, not in any sense of the word, and yet the sight of him, devoid of all antagonism and tricks, was like a balm to his raw nerves.

He was in a perilous state as it was and _fraternizing_ with a demon was surely not the way to remedy it, but already Aziraphale felt better.

“Oh Satan, you _did_ get some poor human pregnant,” Crowley breathed. “Well, it’s been a while since I went through the whole falling process, but I’m happy to play tour guide.”

Crowley had a remarkable talent for proving Aziraphale wrong. “This is serious,” Aziraphale snapped.

“I’ll say. What _possessed_ you – “

Despite himself, Aziraphale was touched by Crowley’s concern. He so rarely saw it that it took several moments to place the expression, a softness that didn’t sit quite on his hard-edged features.

“I didn’t get anybody pregnant. But I could fall for this,” he said quietly.

Crowley’s eyes went wide and sober. “Hell, angel, I was kidding. What did you _do?_ ”

He was lying; Aziraphale knew it without having to _smell_ it. Crowley could not hide from Aziraphale as well as he thought he could. Aziraphale hoped that transparency didn’t run the other way.

“I haven’t done anything yet. It’s what I _want_ to do.”

“Temptation,” Crowley grinned, but he looked lost, as if his insincerity was merely a script he was following. “My, my, angel. I didn’t think you had it in you. But you’re in luck, because temptation happens to be my area of expertise.”

Aziraphale relaxed, a little. Crowley’s irreverence was what he had come to seek, without knowing. Aziraphale had never thought to call it calming, before, but he felt relief wash through him nonetheless. Whatever Crowley thought, once he knew, at least he would treat it like a joke.

“Yes, well,” he said. “It’s not that, exactly, it’s just… I have thoughts.”

“We all have thoughts, angel. You’re going to have to give me more to work with.”

Aziraphale grimaced. It pained him to think the words, let alone say them. “Lustful thoughts.”

“Are you even capable of –“

“About men.”

Crowley stilled, words choked off and lost to the wind. He gaped, black-lined eyes so wide Aziraphale thought hysterically they might bulge out of his head like a snake’s. “Oh,” he managed. “ _You –_ “

“Me,” Aziraphale said, miserably. Crowley’s abject shock was not what he had wanted when he approached him. “You can see why I’m concerned.”

Crowley shook his head. “No, wait. It’s a surprise, sure, but – not a bad one.”

Aziraphale’s heart skipped a full ten beats. If he were human he’d be dead. _Not a bad one –_ what could that _possibly_ mean? The idea of what it _might_ sent a shock of something uncomfortable though him, nauseating and exciting all at once. But it could come to nothing. Crowley was a demon; he was, by definition, a bad idea. Just because Crowley said something was alright did not make it so. Particularly where heaven was concerned.

Aziraphale’s silence must have unnerved Crowley, because he scrambled to correct himself. “Not that that’s to say I was hoping, or, or expecting, just – it’s not nearly as bad as what I thought you were going to say.”

Aziraphale ruthlessly crushed an end to the small spark of intrigue that had been battering against his terror and resolve. It would come to nothing. Crowley had not been hoping.

“What did you think?”

Crowley winced, flushed, and looked away. Aziraphale sensed he was not telling the whole truth. “Sheep?”

“Crowley!”

“So you can see why men was a relief!” Crowley protested. “You spend all that time with sheep herders, anyone would make that assumption. I don’t see why you’re so worked up about it.”

Aziraphale couldn’t tell whether by _it_ he meant the men or the sheep, but either way it was a letdown. He had expected _some_ understanding on Crowley’s part; consternation, at the very least. Not insouciance. “It’s a sin.”

“Says who?”

“Leviticus.”

“So? So are oysters, and you like oysters.”

Aziraphale did not know how Crowley knew he liked oysters.

“This is different.”

“How?”

“The Almighty was very clear – “ Aziraphale began, a sort of panic clawing its way up his throat. The more Crowley fought him, the more it pulled at him, a confused voice whispering that if _Crowley_ thought it was right –

He didn’t know which way that tipped the scales.

“Were you there when he said it?” Crowley demanded. Aziraphale shook his head mutely, beyond argument. Crowley was radiant, determined, face set and posture strong. He was not to be contradicted. “Then who do you know they didn’t get it wrong? Humans are always getting things wrong. All that stuff with brains? Rubbish. Who’s to say they didn’t muck this one up too?”

Crowley’s eyes were blazing gold, and Aziraphale thought this must have been what Crowley looked like when he stood defiant before the Lord Almighty, walking to his own damnation with head high and steps sure. Aziraphale _wanted_ to believe him.

Something changed. That gold went soft, malleable, like hammered leaf, and Crowley’s face, inhuman in its fine-boned beauty, melted into gentleness.

“Look, angel, if _you_ feel it, it can’t be all the way bad. It has to be at least a little bit holy. What’s that you always say? Ineffable.”

Aziraphale knew he must look in bad shape to provoke such concern in Crowley. He _wanted,_ so badly – that face, almost angelic in its perfection – _caring,_ like Aziraphale had never seen it before –

“No one’s ever said –“

“Then that’s their oversight,” Crowley said firmly. So I’ll say it, in case the message of heavenly love got lost somewhere in translation: as someone who lost it a long time ago, trust me when I say _you won’t fall for this._ ”

Aziraphale didn’t think he could have managed a smile for anyone else, but for Crowley, in that moment, he found something like one. “That’s very kind of you, Crowley, but you can’t just decide what –“

Crowley sounded tired, at the end of his patience. But his voice carried a gentleness still when he said, “angel, _I fell._ I think I’m best equipped to tell you what’s a punishable offense. And that? Not one of them.” He quirked a painted-on brow. “Besides, do you want to go about the rest of eternity afraid and ashamed?”

Aziraphale did not.

The desert was cool at night, and with the sun’s last glowing rays slipping behind the golden city, Aziraphale felt something settle into place. Above them, the stars spiraled outwards, universes he had helped to build, comforting in their indifferent light. Crowley looked different in the dusk, too. Not quite as glorious as he had in the sunset; approachable, and _real._ Tangible. Reachable.

“Thank you,” he said. He couldn’t believe Crowley, not entirely, not yet. But he thought maybe someday he’d know, somehow, that Crowley had been right. He couldn’t say when, or why he thought so, but he felt it.

“And, you know,” Crowley said, because accepting angelic gratitude was not his way, “I won’t feel any differently about you, whatever They think.”

Aziraphale dredge up another rueful twist of the mouth. Some things, at least, were certain, no matter what he might want them to be. It was best nothing came of it. “Antipathy and a general distaste for me and all I stand for?”

Crowley smiled at him, wry and amused and something almost fond. “No.”

“Why?”

It was not the question he wanted to ask. He wanted to ask what Crowley had meant when he said _sheep._ He wanted to know what he had meant when he said _no._ But he could not speak those questions into the hush of the desert night and expect Crowley to answer them. That was for another time.

Crowley shrugged, with an easy grace that caught Aziraphale’s eyes and held them there, in the lift of his shoulders where wings might once have lain furled. “Because you worry. And because questioning the fabric of your identity is a real bitch, and no one was there to tell me I was loved.”

It was so unexpectedly, uncharacteristically sincere that Aziraphale could not stop himself from saying, “you are loved.”

Crowley laughed, and the ragged, unbelieving sound of it stung like the windblown sand against Aziraphale’s face.

Aziraphale scrambled to answer a question he hadn’t meant to invite. “Of course by that I mean God loves all –“

“Gotcha,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale knew, keenly, that it had not been the answer Crowley hoped for. “Sleep with who you want, Aziraphale. You’re too infuriatingly _good_ to make it anything but holy.”

And he was gone, into the quiet and cool of the night, vanished in a rush of wind and sand, and Aziraphale was alone once more with his thoughts.

They were not about Crowley, those lustful thoughts. But, Aziraphale thought, in the someday-future space in his heart, perhaps, in time, they might be. Something might come of it.


	2. Chapter 2

They were on a sightseeing tour, of sorts, a greatest-hits of architecture and geography, an inventory-taking of all the things they almost lost. And, though neither of them would admit it, an opportunity to reassure themselves it was all still there, like waking up from a nightmare and grabbing your leg just to make sure it hasn’t been eaten.

There had been no question they would go together. They had started the whole thing together, nearly ended it together, and now, with the dust newly settled, they had no one but each other. It had been a long time coming, Aziraphale thought, and a welcome change. It was merely the realization of how it had always felt, when it truly was just the two of them, back when they’d had the run of the world.

They had done the big things – the Pyramids, Everest, the Grand Canyon – and now they had moved on to the lesser-known, the former Wonders and the places with nothing special to their name save sentiment.

This was a sort of middle ground, a rest stop, a bridge between human achievement and immortal memory. They had met here infrequently, over the centuries, at important moments and later because it was secluded, hallowed ground no mortal would dare to desecrate just to overhear a conversation.

The chasm of red dirt and rock stretched for miles below them. It was as it had always been, absent archeological teams and the occasional rare tourist. They were alone with the great stone effigies of Pharaohs past, dwarfed by the artistry of human belief.

Crowley spoke into the comfortable silence. “Look at that. Millennia of human history, just like that. Could’ve all been gone.”

Aziraphale looked. The valley was a marvel of art and religion, the kings of great dynasties preserved for posterity. Humans were so wonderfully sentimental.

He imagined those immense statues toppled, crumbling, like the Statue of Liberty in one of those American blockbusters, sandy stones that stood the test of centuries reduced to nothing by holy war. They had come so close.

“They were good times,” Aziraphale said. He felt as though they were perched on some sort of precipice, looking back across the ages at their own history. They had watched Hatshepsut interred from this very vantage point, eons ago, a respectful, wary distance between them. Now, they stood side by side, hands not quite touching, in easy companionship.

They were out of place, now, he thought, he in his outmoded patterned vest and Crowley in his fashionably-fitted shirt. It felt strange, standing there in new bodies and newer clothes, so far removed from what they once had been.

Crowley looked pensive. Aziraphale wished he could know those thoughts, to know if they mirrored his own. If he closed his eyes, he could see a different Crowley, gleaming beautiful in white linen, bare snake-skin feet on the hot sand.

“It wasn’t sheep,” Crowley said.

Aziraphale opened his eyes, and his Crowley was still there, staring resolutely across the gap to the cliffs beyond. “What?” he said, because it seemed like the thing to say, even though he knew instinctively what Crowley meant. He thought he knew what Crowley had meant the first time he said it, too.

Crowley blinked rapidly, like a desert creature clearing the sand from its eyes, a distinctly human and un-serpentine habit. “I thought you meant you.”

“I didn’t.”

“I know.”

There was nothing mournful about it, no disappointment or blame. Crowley had done his mourning long ago, Aziraphale suspected.

“I should have believed you,” he said, because ‘I’m sorry’ would be meaningless.

Crowley smiled a small, lopsided smile, huffed a soft laugh. “’salright. I didn’t expect you to. Thought I’d try anyway.”

Aziraphale owed him a thousand apologies, for all the times Crowley had _tried_ , knowing Aziraphale would never meet him halfway. But Aziraphale was not sure how to give them.

“Did you –“ he began, letting Crowley fill in the rest of the sentence.

Crowley’s eyes were bright with humor and his voice light with a secret joke. “Eventually. Once it stopped feeling so much like a sin.”

“You lied to me,” Aziraphale accused, but he couldn’t put any heat behind it. He had known, deep down, all along, that Crowley had only been improvising. The care and well-disguised affection that action betrayed had stuck with Aziraphale across the years, like a precious stone to take out and look at when he wasn’t sure of Crowley’s regard. But he was sure now.

“I told you what you needed to hear,” Crowley said, still smiling, like he knew Aziraphale’s game. “And look where we are now. Heaven is _furious_ with you, and you’re still here. No amount of sex you could have was ever going to damn you.”

It was the perfect opening, and Aziraphale suspected Crowley had left it open on purpose, but he chose instead to watch the shadows move across the pillars of the temple. The moment would come.

“I thought about it, you know,” he said, conversationally. “In Wales.”

Crowley choked, spluttered, and glared. “You did _not._ ”

“I didn’t,” Aziraphale agreed, just to hear Crowley swear at him. “But there were so many of the buggers, and I kept thinking about you…”

“You missed me so much you considered fucking a sheep?” Crowley said, incredulous. “Angel, you could have just called.”

Aziraphale laughed, feeling lighter, unburdened. It was ridiculous, and Crowley was letting him say it, letting him stall. Crowley was always letting him, always waiting for him to catch up, standing just as close as Aziraphale would allow.

They were standing very close, now.

“Would you have come?”

“You know I would.”

They always seemed to meet in sunsets like this one, when the day was winding down and it was easier to speak in the half-light.

“You said you wouldn’t feel any differently about me,” Aziraphale said, tentatively, edging towards a conclusion, balanced on that precipitous _something._

“Antipathy and a general distaste, if I recall,” Crowley said, but his smile grew brighter. He looked different than he had, yes – older, in some ways, world-wearier and wise – but the setting sun still painted his features like a dusting of gold leaf, and his eyes, brilliant without their shades, glowed with expectation. Aziraphale allowed himself to be caught in them, to share in their warmth and pleased anticipation.

Crowley had been expecting this for longer than Aziraphale could truly comprehend.

He let his gaze slide from Crowley’s face and down his figure, let Crowley see him do it. “Something along those lines,” he murmured, drawn back to Crowley’s unblinking eyes. “Were you telling the truth?”

Crowley’s smile was slow, dangerous, and triumphant. Finally, he had Aziraphale where he wanted him, and Aziraphale was caught. “No.”

“Glad to hear it,” Aziraphale said, and he was. That ‘no’ had been confusing and worrying when he first heard it, but now there was only one inexorable, inevitable thing it could mean.

It had been millennia coming, but Aziraphale was finally there, and Crowley was right beside him.

“I’ve been lonely, you know,” Aziraphale said. “Not very many sheep in London. I thought about calling you.”

“Did you, now?”

Aziraphale couldn’t answer the unspoken ‘why didn’t you?’ He had been afraid, he supposed, and Crowley had seemed untouchable, in his pressed suits and pristine white flat. Here, in the dust and golden shadows, out of place and time, it was easier to remember how he had looked before, how he had waited, when Aziraphale first thought – _maybe –_

Aziraphale let his gaze settle on the far horizon, finding his balance. “You are loved. I’m sorry I never told you.”

“I didn’t need to hear you say it,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale could feel Crowley’s eyes on him, heating his cheeks like a sunburn. “But it’s nice to know.”

The air was cold, but there was a scent, carried in with the night, like the dry warmth of a sun-baked rock. Crowley stood beside him in the sunset, waiting, like he had waited since Aziraphale first found him in the desert, and Aziraphale finally found the courage to speak.

“If I’d Fallen, for you – I don’t think that would have been so bad.”

Crowley laughed. “That’s an old joke, angel.”

Aziraphale lifted his gaze from the horizon to smile back at him. “It wasn’t when I thought of it. I just hasn’t aged well.”

He was prepared to take the leap, if he had to, but he knew Crowley would not make him.

They stood close, habitually, these days, so it was easy for Crowley to turn and bring their faces within a breath of each other. “Think you can make this holy?”

“I think you’ve got enough angel left in you to make it work,” Aziraphale said, because he knew it would make Crowley laugh, and laughter was the perfect way to begin a kiss.

“I’m glad you chose me over the sheep,” Crowley murmured.

“It was a close call.”

The last rays of a golden sunset threw Crowley’s face into relief as he slowly, carefully pressed his lips to Aziraphale’s.

They had met here, infrequently, dozens of times since Aziraphale had first come to him in the desert, drawing slowly closer together until this moment, holding each other in the dusk, above the summation of centuries of human achievement. They had almost lost this.

And still, Crowley had waited, as long has he needed, for Aziraphale to catch up. Crowley had the faith that Aziraphale had lacked, and in the end it had been Crowley’s faith in them that carried them through.

They kissed out on the cooling desert sand, and it might have been holy.

Aziraphale didn’t care.


End file.
